Author: duffman

Did Democrats peak in the NYC suburbs?

Until 20 years ago the suburbs around New York City were strongly Republican. Now they are strongly Democratic. In the area I would consider the NYC metro area there are 30 Congressional Districts. These are NY-(01-19), NJ-(04-13), and CT-04. (I know, it’s debatable what is and what isn’t.) Only 5 of the 30 are represented by Republicans: NY-03, NJ-05, NJ-11, NJ-07, and NJ-04. Amazingly, there are 6 districts in this area that have a PVI of D+30 or better.

All across the country, suburbs are trending Democratic. Older suburbs are now reliably Democratic. However it looks like some of the suburban areas around New York City may have peaked in around 2000. Some of these “traditionally Republican” areas may be trending Republican again.

For a reference to the names of counties, see this map provided by Wikipedia.

The Bad News

County 2000 2004 2008
Staten Island 50/42 43/56 48/52
Nassau County 56/36 52/47 54/45
Suffolk County 52/39 49/49 53/47
Rockland County 54/37 49/50 53/47
Bergen County 55/42 52/47 54/45
Sussex County 37/58 35/64 39/59
Monmouth County 50/46 45/55 47/51
Ocean County 47/49 39/60 40/58

The Good News

County 2000 2004 2008
Westchester County 57/35 58/40 63/36
Orange County 45/47 44/55 52/47
Fairfield County 52/43 51/47 59/40
Essex County 71/26 70/29 76/23
Somerset County 47/50 47/52 53/46
Morris County 43/54 42/58 45/53
Hunterdon County 38/57 39/60 43/56
Mercer County 61/34 61/38 67/31

Some of the biggest Democratic losses at the presidential level from 2000 to 2004 came from the suburban counties around New York City. It’s tempting to dismiss these as short-term losses, and blame them on September 11. But we did worse in some of these counties in 2008 than in 2000, so this could be the beginning of a long-term trend. If we don’t take it seriously it could eventually cost us elections.

NY-13 and NY-03 currently have PVI‘s of about D+1. After they are recalculated to consider 2008 results, they will probably be about R+4.

Of the 5 Republican-held districts, we should strongly contest these 2 in 2010:

NY-03 will be an open race in 2010. Its Republican incumbent, Peter King, will vacate the seat in order to unsuccessfully run for the Senate. This race is a toss-up, depending on what the political situation is like in 2010. It’s tempting to take it for granted, because Tim Bishop and Steve Israel were able to flip NY-01 and NY-02 earlier this decade. If we win it’s because we had an excellent candidate and and excellent campaign that earned every last vote.

Meanwhile, Republican-held district NJ-07 is trending in our direction. NJ-07 was designed to be Republican, but now it’s a swing district that Obama won. I’m on the record stating we should try again in 2010 to win NJ-07.

Cross-posted to Daily Kos.

Are we a Party of Defeat?

David Horowitz is a Republican activist who travels from college campus to college campus, giving inflammatory lectures about how liberals hate America and Muslims want to kill you. He recently published a new book called Party of Defeat: How Democrats and Radicals Undermined America’s War on Terror Before and After 9/11. The authors of this book proudly advertise it right here. As you can see, it has a white flag on the cover, it is about as offensive and inflammatory as you can get.

You may be wondering, who would support such divisive offensive partisan posturing over national security issues. Not 4-5 years ago, when it was more popular, but in 2008. Fortunately for us, 17 Republicans in Congress have endorsed this book.

The 17 are:

Jeff Sessions, Jim Bunning, Tom Coburn, James Inhofe, Peter Hoekstra, Peter King, Buck McKeon, Mark Souder, Tom Tancredo, Jim Saxon, Steve Buyer, Ed Royce, John Shadegg, Mike Pence, Lamar Smith, David Dreier, and Ginny Brown-Waite.

We happen to have some excellent candidates running against some of these individuals, and here is one more line of attack to use against them. I strongly implore all Democratic challengers of the above-mentioned Republicans to obtain a copy of this book, highlight the name of your opponent, and bring it with you everywhere you campaign. Even in right-leaning districts, the majority won’t stand for this kind of politics.

10 of the 17 are running for reelection on November 4 and have Democratic challengers. Here is the ActBlue page I created listing the Democratic challengers to these Republicans.

(cross-posted at DailyKos)